


Paired

by Bullfinch



Series: Piper & Bash [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4413494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bash takes Piper on a shortcut, which goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paired

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Since there's no tokens, imagine the following: Piper is tiny and perpetually annoyed. Bash is rugged and large like a friendly bear.

“This is NOT faster!”

Bash looks back, shouting against the wind. “I didn’t say faster! I said shortcut! It’s shorter!” Then he motions ahead.

Piper pulls his hood further over his face and continues trudging. A snow-covered tundra is bad enough. A snow-covered tundra in a blizzard is inexcusable. “I’m never listening to you again!”

“You have to, I’m your boss!” Bash grins at him.

Piper grumbles to himself. Bash is seventeen years old, even younger than Piper (by only a couple of months, but still). Hardly qualified to be the boss of anyone. But it’s just how things are. He supposes he’ll have to get used to it. After all, they’re paired for life.  _Paired_ —Piper grinds his teeth at the faint heat rising to his cheeks. Why does he have to blush so easily? It’s impossible to think that Bash hasn’t noticed yet.

But he hasn’t said anything. Probably for the best.

No,  _definitely_  for the best. A Hevron and a Grey can’t be together. The Greys guard the Hevrons, and if need be, lay down their lives for them. A relationship would make that much harder.

Harder than this? Piper sighs, his breath misting out and snatched away immediately by the wind. The only reason this is hard is because he can’t get over himself. Or, more accurately, Bash.

Anyway. Many more “shortcuts” to look forward to, he’s sure of that. Bash is the kind who prefers to leap off the balcony rather than take the stairs.

And Piper will be there at the bottom for him to land on. Another gust, blowing flakes right into Piper’s face. He turns his back to the wind, just for a second of relief—and squints. There’s something moving, and in the near-whiteout, it must be close—

“Bash!” he yells, hoping the wind doesn’t steal his words away, and draws his mace and shield.

Two riders mounted on great shaggy oxen. As they draw closer, Piper keeps his eyes on the oxen’s horns. Dyed black, and wrapped with wicked-looking barbs. “Jianduan!” he shouts over his shoulder. Not good. Far more hostile to outsiders than the Yintian, with whom they were hoping to find shelter for the night. Bash comes up on his shield side, broad-bladed sword at the ready. Thank the gods for the shin-deep snow or he’d have charged right in.

The riders split, bracketing them. Piper faces the closest one, praying Bash doesn’t do anything stupid while his back is turned. Then he advances. Needs to put space between the two melees to give them both some room to maneuver.

This rider is quite short—likely a woman. She’s holding a light longspear. Good. That might work well against leather armor, but against his steel, it won’t be too dangerous. He just needs to make sure he doesn’t get poked in the eye. His helm is still in his pack.

The rider spurs her ox forward, and it charges through the snow, head swinging. With his feet sunk into the snow like this, Piper has the disadvantage in mobility. The best way to counter that is not giving her a chance to react. So he waits, waits until the ox is nearly on top of him, then falls to one side, bringing his shield to bear and swinging his mace as he does.

A blow on the shield—her spear, sliding off. And a solid jar up his arm as his mace hits home, landing hard on the ox’s horn. With its head suddenly jerked to one side, it sidesteps clumsily, then gets stuck in the snow—

“Oh, shit—“ Piper rolls, only just getting out of the way before the ox lands on its side. The rider lets out a scream, her leg trapped beneath it. Piper struggles to his feet, still off-balance, and makes a messy swing with the mace. It glances off the back of her skull, and she goes limp. Piper drops the mace and goes for the knife at his belt to finish off the ox—

A strangled yell from behind him. Piper whirls. That’s Bash.

He’s on his back, the other ox bearing down on him. Its rider is spinning something—a sling. Not good. Bash is struggling to his feet, but if that rider knocks him down again, he’ll get trampled.

The rider looses the stone as Piper starts forging through the snow. Bash’s head snaps back—he’s not wearing a helmet, either—and he topples over. The ox pushes inexorably forward. Piper realizes he won’t get there in time.

His muscles move with memory buried deep under layers of non-use, memory he didn’t know was still there. He flips the knife, holding it blade-first, pulls his arm back, and throws.

His aim is off—he was trying for the rider’s middle. Ends up hitting their face instead. The rider screams, clutching at their face, yanking the ox’s reins in the process. The ox veers to one side. Piper’s not sure through the snow but he thinks it misses Bash.

He keeps going, weaponless now but not for long, not when he reaches Bash’s sword and picks it up. It’s heavy, meant to be wielded in two hands, but Piper’s not willing to part with his shield. Instead he pursues the rider, who’s still screaming.

But the ox is coming about and charging again, the rider slipping off its back as it wheels. Piper mutters an oath. Apparently they’re trained to attack even without direction. He moves away from Bash, who still hasn’t gotten up. The snow is flatter here from the fighting.

So he can dodge the ox’s charge, swinging the heavy sword in a wide arc as it blunders past. The hilt is nearly ripped out of his hand as it catches flesh, but he hangs on, clears it with a powerful heave. The ox stops behind him, sliding a little, then lists, a gash yawning open in its side. Piper brings the blade around and jams it through the animal’s throat.

It lets out a gurgling low, goes to its knees and finally falls. Piper tosses the blade down, breathing hard. Now to—

He almost doesn’t see until it’s too late, the huge creature bearing down on him through the whiteout. The first ox. Piper tries to sidestep into the fallen creature beside him, trips over its leg, raises his shield—

The ox charges past its companion, its head striking Piper’s shield at an angle. He grunts. The pain isn’t awful, but that quality—sharp, but buried—means something in his arm just broke. The force of the blow spins him, and he lands on top of the dead animal’s head.

Another bloom of pain, this one an acid burn in his lower back. One of the barbs on its horns must have slipped through an opening in his armor. With effort, he sits upright, feeling now the sickly sliding as the barb slips out of his flesh, and scans for the sword he tossed down.

There. Only a couple of feet away. He lunges for it, knowing the ox is on its way back but lacking the split-second to look up and check—

So instead he swings the sword wide again as he comes around, another wild arc, bringing his shield up at the same time. Once again the ox crashes into his shield, driving him straight back into its dead companion’s body. Piper has the breath knocked out of him, and whatever’s broken in his arm screams at the blow, but the corpse cushions him. At the same time, something seizes and twists his sword, wrenching his arm back and nearly pulling his shoulder out of its socket.

Then everything stills.

Piper stays like that for a moment, gasping for breath, his good arm yanked back awkwardly. He’s crushed under his shield and the pressure’s not letting off.

Slowly, he manages to extract himself, releasing the sword hilt, withdrawing his arm from the shield, edging sideways until he’s in the open air again.

The other oxen is collapsed on top of where he just was, the blade buried in its neck. Piper pulls it out and squints into the snow, then points himself toward where he thinks the rider fell. He’s off by a few yards but finds the man eventually, unmoving, knife jammed at an angle in his eye. Trudges toward the first rider. Alive but unconscious. Good enough. She won’t follow them knowing she’s outnumbered.

Now for Bash.

Piper’s shield-arm throbs, and his lower back burns sharp. He hopes fervently the Yintian village is close. Bash’s eyes are closed, but he’s still breathing. Piper shakes him. “Bash. Hey.”

No response.

Piper checks the wound. A deep cut, right at the temple. He might be out for a while. Piper grimaces. They really need to move. No telling how often patrols come through here. He does a quick check for any other wounds. No obvious bleeding. Good enough.

Then he shuts his eyes briefly, summoning his second sight. Opens them again.

The world in shades of green and blue, distances collapsed in on each other, paths appearing where there were no paths before. He reins in his focus.  _Yintian. Find the Yintian._

There, a warm spring-green light backed up against the mountains. Not backed up. Separated by a hundred miles. But in that direction. Piper knows where to go now. He blinks the second sight away, rubbing his eyes. Tries to wake Bash again, with the same result.

“Damnit, Bash,” he mutters. “Why do you have to be so huge?”

Bash is over six feet and close to two hundred pounds. Piper is lean, a little over a hundred and fifty. Conditioned by his time spent wearing plate armor, but that’s not enough. Not even close.

He makes some decisions. The first thing he does is remove his armor, letting the heavy steel plates fall away into the snow. He pulls the thick cloak back on afterwards. Next he peels off Bash’s chainmail and wraps him back up too. Leaves his shield where it is but takes the sword. It’s an heirloom of the Hevron family, and they’d never forgive him if he lost it. Not to mention his own family. A Grey who willingly chose to leave behind Kumashte would no longer be deserving of the name Grey.

He leaves behind Bash’s pack, too, and empties most of his own, leaving some rations, the water wrapped with its faintly glowing warmstone, and the white gold amulet Bash is supposed to be presenting to the Gongzhu when they finally cross this gods-forsaken tundra and hit the imperial city at the base of the mountains.

If they ever get there. Piper hauls Bash’s body onto his back, slinging one arm and one leg over his shoulders, then struggles to his feet.

And immediately falls. Bash is  _heavy._  And that damn barb wound won’t stop stinging. But Piper tries again, and this time he manages to stay standing.

Progress is slow. Very slow. Piper’s legs are burning before he’s gone twenty yards. He shifts his grip, holding Bash’s arm and leg with one hand, using his good arm to half-crawl through the drifts of snow. The wind whips in his face but he doesn’t have a free hand to pull his hood forward, so he shuts his eyes and barrels ahead. Checks once with his second sight to make sure he’s still going in the right direction. He knows he’s leaving a trail behind him that no one could fail to follow, let alone members of a tribe who make their living in this snow-cursed country. But he also knows he can’t afford to cover it up. That much magic will suck the energy right out of him.

So he’s making a gamble. The Yintian village is just under five miles away. If they make it there before another patrol can chase them down, they should be okay.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been when the dizziness hits him, a full, head-whirling attack that makes him stumble sideways and fall into a drift. He struggles to his feet, shifting Bash once again on his back. Forges ahead.

And grows dizzy again, reeling as if drunk. This time when he falls, he blacks out briefly and comes to confused and blinking. What in the nine hells is wrong with him? This isn’t from the fatigue, it’s more like he was drugged—

It comes together. The barbs on the ox’s horns. The burning in his lower back that won’t abate.

He’s been poisoned.

“NO!” he yells into the wind. He can’t imagine the poison’s anything but fatal. If it were meant to disable, it would have acted a lot faster. He summons his second sight again, searches out the Yintian village.

A shortcut. Not short enough. They’re still four miles away. There’s no way he’s going to get there in time. Can’t save Bash after all. He punches the snow, his arm sinking in to the elbow. Thought he could do it. He really did.

But maybe…

He slings Bash down, tries again to wake him. “Come on, Bash, please,  _please—_ “ But he meets with no more success this time than the last. Piper presses a gloved hand to his eyes and waits for another dizziness spell to pass, then scans again, looking for any variation in the terrain.

There. A slight rise, thirty yards off. Piper drags Bash, ignoring the twinges in his injured arm, this time pushing magic with what little energy he has to cover the trail. A couple of times on the way he blacks out, then awakens to find he’s still trudging forward.

He pulls Bash behind the rise, digging out a depression in the snow. Stops halfway through when a wave of nausea hits, then keeps going. Hopefully this will hide Bash from pursuers, at least a little. Then he sits back, considering. If he’s going to be dead in the near future, he won’t be giving off any body heat to keep Bash from freezing.

And he won’t need his cloak anymore. So he strips it off and wraps it around Bash.

The wind bites through his clothing, and he shivers. Despite the wintry conditions, he’s sweating. A combination of effort and that damn poison. Another dizzy spell, but he fights through this one. Needs to give it one last try.

“Come on. Come on, wake up. Please.” He shakes Bash feebly. Nothing. Tears prick Piper’s eyes, and he rubs at them, sniffling. “I just want to say goodbye. Please wake up, Bash.”

Bash remains silent and still. Then it hits him all at once, the fatigue and the dizziness, and he slumps sideways, blacking out one last time.

——

He has horrible dreams. Bash is kissing him, stroking his face. Everything is perfect. It can’t be like that, ever.  _Weak, weak, weak._ He’s weak for wanting it. Weak for not having quashed his feelings by now. Now Bash is saying it.  _“You’re weak, Piper. I wouldn’t want to be with you anyway.”_

That’s better.

Then Bash is getting trampled by the great shaggy ox. Piper rushes over, but he’s too late. Bash’s chest is crushed, his face broken. He struggles to speak.  _“I thought you were supposed to protect me.”_

 _I’m sorry! I tried!_  Piper shouts. The wind snatches his words away. Bash coughs, blood gurgling in the back of his throat, then falls silent and still.

The ground shakes. Piper turns. The ox is pounding toward him, but it stops just a few feet away, watches him with huge brown eyes.  _Why did you stop?!_  Piper yells. _Take me too! I should be dead too! I let him die! I let him die! I should be dead!_

——

“Piper!”

He crawls through the snow, going after the ox, which is walking away from him as if it’s decided he’s not worth it—

“Piper! It’s okay, you’re safe!”

He’s losing distance. Something’s holding him down. He fights it, tries to crawl again—

“Piper— _ow_ , come on, I’m just trying to help—“

He opens his eyes.

Finds Bash staring at him from inches away.

Piper jolts and scrambles back, only to hit his head against a wall. “Ouch,” he whispers, raising a hand absently to rub the spot.

Bash is grinning like this is the best day of his life. “You made it.”

Piper blinks, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Last thing he remembers, he was…

Dead.

Or on his way. And now he’s in…he looks around. Someone’s house. Xueren-style central fireplace surrounded by a stone lattice. Must be the Yintian village they were heading toward. He becomes aware he’s naked under the covers, and pulls them up self-consciously. “How’d I get here?” he mumbles.

“Um…” Bash eases off Piper’s bed and into a chair beside it. “I brought you.”

Piper’s brow creases. “You…brought me? Like dragged me?”

“Sometimes. I tried to carry you most of the time but it was a long way.”

“No, you—you weren’t supposed to do that!” The churn of fear in his stomach, despite the fact that they made it. “You were supposed to just go! I was poisoned in the fight, I wasn’t gonna make it anyway!“

“I know. You looked terrible when I woke up.” A tenuous half-smile bends Bash’s mouth, not reaching his eyes. “Really pale. Thought maybe it was ‘cause you were freezing, but you…you were breathing really fast, and—“ He shifts in his seat. “Uh, so I just put you on my back and started walking. You’re not that heavy, it wasn’t bad.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Piper folds his arms. The injured one still hurts, but not badly. The burning in his lower back has lessened too.

“Yeah, well.” Bash’s eyes flick down.

They’re silent for a moment. Piper wraps his blankets around him, not quite sure how to react. Bash should have put himself first, but on the other hand, they’re both alive. Speaking of which… “How did I not die?”

“Hm? Oh. The Yintian know the poison that got you. Their healer said it looked like you got a low dose, so they might still be able to save you. But we didn’t know. Until just now, anyway.” Then he’s smiling again, a real one this time.

Piper nods. “How long was I out?”

“I think…three days?”

Three days? “Wait, we—we have to go! If the Yintian will lend us an ox, then maybe…” Piper does quick calculations in his head as he wraps the covers around him more securely, making a makeshift robe. “We’ll have to ride through at least one night, but we can reach the city—“

Bash half-rises. “Piper, calm down, you’re in no shape to travel—“

“Bash, I’m fine. If you miss the meeting with the Gongzhu, they’ll take that as a major snub—“ He swings his feet over the side of the bed.

Bash grabs his arm. “I don’t  _care_ , Piper, forget the Gongzhu—“

He shakes Bash off irritably. “You can’t ‘forget the Gongzhu,’ this is a big deal! We have to leave. Today.” Then he stands.

The next thing he knows, he is again waking up with Bash’s face only inches from his. Except this time it’s twisted into a strained grimace, and they’re both on the floor.

Piper blinks. He must have fainted. And Bash must have caught him. Or tried, and fallen. “I—sorry, I didn’t—are you okay?” He puts an elbow on the edge of the bed and pushes himself up.

Bash nods. “Uh-huh. Just. Leg. Fine.” He points at his left leg.

Which is wrapped up in an immobilizing splint below the knee. Piper’s fingers ball in the sheets. When did that happen? He freezes, trying to remember…

The ox that tried to trample Bash. Piper thought it missed. Apparently it didn’t.

Bash has just finished hauling himself up onto the chair when the anger bursts out of Piper. “You carried me here on a  _broken leg?!”_

Bash winces. “I…yeah. It wasn’t that bad.”

“ _Wasn’t that bad?!_  Bash, when you figure out you have to drag yourself four miles through the snow in hostile territory on a broken leg, you do  _not_  decide to carry someone else with you!  _Especially_ me!” Piper can’t remember the last time he was this angry, if he’s ever been.

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t leave you, Piper. I couldn’t leave you to die.” He sits forward, puts a hand out jerkily. It lands on the sheets next to Piper’s knee.

“Look, Bash, I know you like playing the hero, but you don’t have to save everyone!” Piper snaps. “There’s no one to impress here!  _I’m_  sure as hell not impressed!”

Bash flinches, hurt bleeding onto his face. “Piper, that’s—that’s not why.”

Piper smacks his arm, the poison-induced weakness stealing any force from the blow. “You’re the important one! Okay? Do you understand? I’m the bodyguard, I’m SUPPOSED to give my life to save yours! I can’t believe, after  _all this time_ —“ Smacks Bash’s arm again. “—you just  _do not get_  how this works! We’ve been doing this for years and you still—“

He has to stop yelling then because Bash takes his face in both hands and kisses him.

There’s an odd slippage of time. Everything seems to freeze, with Bash’s lips on his, locked there. But then Bash is pulling away and the moment feels so brief Piper can hardly believe it happened at all. Never in a million years. Never did he think Bash could feel the same.

The words stumble out of him. “Why…why did you do that?”

Bash is again slouched in his chair, arms folded loosely. “Because I’ve been totally into you since we were about thirteen years old, and I’ve been sitting here watching you for three days while you were sweating and pale as a ghost and having these horrible nightmares, and I was sure you were gonna die and all I could think was I never kissed this idiot. How could I not have told him? It was right there in front of us and we never let ourselves have it.”

Oh no. Piper feels sweat prickling on his back, from nervousness this time. “Right in front of…”

“Us. Yeah, I’ve known you were into me for a while now.”

Piper grasps at holds that aren’t there, trying to stop this gut-swoop fall. “I’m…no, I’m not…”

“Piper, you kind of wear your heart on your sleeve. It wasn’t hard to tell.” A devilish grin. “Plus you blush like a fiend every time I change in front of you.”

Piper jumps, pulling his covers up to his chest and—of course—blushing. Hells take him. Then he realizes— “Wait, you—you were doing it on purpose! The—changing in front of me!”

“Oh yeah.” Bash nods, self-satisfied. “I liked to do it at the times you were least expecting it just to see you scramble to look away.”

Piper glares. “You are  _such_  an asshole.”

Bash just shrugs, looking truly happy for the first time since he first saw Piper waking.

But Piper pushes himself back until he’s leaning up against the wall. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t do this.”

“Piper…”

“It’s not allowed. This—“ He indicates the two of them. “This only works if you let me do my job. And if you insist on saving me even when it might get you killed, then it all falls apart.”

Bash’s smile fades. “Listen, I know how it’s supposed to work. I  _know._  But…that’s not how it works for me.”

Piper covers his face. “Then we can’t stay paired. You’ll have to take someone else. I can switch with Cressel.” His sister, three years younger, currently paired with Bash’s sister—

“No, Piper.” A warm hand on his knee. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

Piper drops his hands, taking a second to scrub at his eyes. “Then what do we do?”

Bash is sitting on the edge of the bed now. “Well…I was thinking maybe we could try it and see what happens.” A half-grin. “It’s gotta be better than this dance we’ve been doing for the past few years. Uh—I mean, do you  _want_  to try it?”

Piper has his fingers pressed to his mouth and he’s afraid if he opens it he’ll start crying for real. So instead he just nods.

Then Bash takes his hand away and kisses him again. When they break off Piper hugs Bash and holds him in the way he’s only dreamed about and thought he would never get to do. Buries his face in Bash’s shoulder. Feels Bash’s giant arms encircling him in a bear hug.

Piper wants to stay there forever but jerks back when he hears the door swinging open and a gust of cold air blows into the house. There’s a woman hidden under layers of warm clothing, stomping the snow off her boots. She shoots off a stream of rapid Xuewen that he can’t follow. Bash laughs, then answers, albeit more slowly. She says something else, then sets down the basket she’s carrying and heads out again.

“What’d she say?” Piper asks as the door swings shut.

“Um…when they brought me in they thought we were…together. I guess I looked pretty desperate to save your life. I said we weren’t but she side-eyed me pretty hard. So she just told me I should have listened to her in the first place.”

“Huh.”  _Together._  Piper’s having a hard time believing it himself.

“Hey, Piper…”

“Hm?”

“My leg, it’s…kinda aching…” Bash rubs the splint, putting on a grimace for good measure. “I don’t know if I can make it all the way across the room to my own bed. I think I need to get my rest here instead.”

Piper finds he’s very tired, despite the fact that he’s been asleep for three days. He and Bash have slept in the same bed before, but…not like this.

He lies down and scoots over, curiously excited. Keeps the covers wrapped around him. Being in bed with Bash is one thing, being in bed naked with him is another. Bash lies down and wriggles closer, laying his head on Piper’s chest and his arm across Piper’s stomach.

Through the pulsing strains of guilt and fear—if Bash gave his life for Piper and not the other way around, Piper knows he’d never recover—the happiness wells up, a fair replacement for his lost strength. He wants to savor it more, but even the storm of possibilities whirling through his head isn’t enough to keep him awake. He drifts off in the middle of stroking Bash’s hair.


End file.
